Corked

i've looked at this image 5 or 6 different times now trying to understand what movements you used to arrive at such an interesting dof/pof...but i can't for the life of me work it out in my head...if you don't mind, could you tell us a little about the movements you employed and why you decided to use the ones you did? did you know it would look like this? thanks so much in advance! great image, to say the least!

Thanks for looking and for the question. As the title says, this is a study; I set a scene and try to capture it. My still life box defines the size limits for my setup; I had to get in fairly close or the sides of the enclosure would show. My goal was to use as narrow DOF as possible, yet to get as much of the text in focus as I could, (the bottle, the corks, the corkscrew). But as there is a lot of front to back motion in the lower half of the frame, it meant sacrificing focus in the top half. There is quite an extreme front tilt, with the focal plane pretty much bisecting the lower half of the image. (so much for the rule of thirds) The result is that while most of the lower half has an "acceptable" focus, the top is really surreal. There is also a slight front swing to bring the focus from lower right to mid-left. Would I do it again this way? I think I might move the plane a little higher, but that would mean using a greater DOF to capture the text, which was the challenge I set for myself in this study. The one thing I would do differently is I would have gotten my notebook out and properly recorded what I was doing. (That was dumb.) Thanks for looking.

Nicely done Tom. I bet you this was fun to compose!

Great composition and lighting (and focus). I like the way the cork screw looks like a little animal, something like a praying mantis. Just my weird take.

Thanks folks. The thing that bugs me the most about this print is something that is purely accidental; the lettering on the cork is lined up way too perfectly... like an advertisement. Had I thought about it, I would have made it a little more random. And, yes, Dave, it was kinda fun trying to bend that plane of focus.

thanks so much for your detailed feedback, toffle. i appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. looking forward to your further captures!